


my dear friend

by too_much_in_the_sun



Category: Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Disabled Character, Gen, Male Friendship, i mean they could be in a relationship idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herbert West has a painful chronic condition which requires him to use a cane to get around. </p>
<p>Dan worries about him.</p>
<p>Set just before "Bride of Re-Animator".</p>
            </blockquote>





	my dear friend

It’s 4 am, and Dan Cain still feels jetlagged even though they’ve been back from Peru for two months. He’s not a med student anymore, and there are still scabs on his stomach from when he was nearly eviscerated in that dirty hospital tent before he and West fled the country.

West is the reason he’s awake now, though not, for once, because he’s kept Dan up working in the lab. Herbert has been unusually subdued ever since they came back from Peru, and he avoids leaving the house even more than usual. His cane has come to occupy a nearly permanent place beside the front door — before they left, Herbert habitually stowed his cane next to his coat in the closet when he returned home from errands, but now the slim black metal cane stands by the door as if Herbert is ever ready to leave, without ever actually leaving.

Dan hasn’t been sleeping well. Tonight he managed a thin, grainy doze for a while, before coming awake with a growing sense of unease to silence in the house. To absence.

At Dan’s insistence, Herbert has been sleeping in his room lately. It’s the only way he can be sure that Herbert takes the time to rest. He’s taken the same approach to feeding his friend; Dan tries to avoid hovering over him lest he be swatted, but makes sure as much as he can that they eat at the same time. If he leaves Herbert to his own devices, he’s afraid he’ll find that small body collapsed on the floor again, rendered unconscious by chronic exhaustion and underfeeding.

Herbert is gone, and this is what wakes Dan from his light sleep. He can’t hear Herbert’s slow breathing next to him, and the rumpled covers where he had been are cold.

It’s the scream from the basement, though, that brings Dan all the way awake.

Herbert’s reanimates are never happy to find themselves alive again — “birth is always painful,” Herbert told him the first time, watching Rufus, but Dan is more inclined to believe what Herbert told him later. That it’s life in general that’s painful, and returning to it from peaceful death a trauma that cannot be borne.

This is why they picked this house by the cemetary. They have no neighbors to hear screams, which are alarmingly frequent occurrences when Herbert is having a good week. Dan is almost used to hearing the dead wail from the basement.

This scream is different. The reanimated dead sound decayed. They sound dead. This scream comes from a living throat.

Herbert West’s throat, if Dan isn’t mistaken.

He rolls out of bed and yanks on a bathrobe, shoves his feet into slippers. Herbert doesn’t care, but Dan insists on at least wearing socks in the basement. The concrete is too cold down there.

When he told Herbert that, Herbert only smiled and looked at him with as close to fondness as he ever got. “I’m in pain all the time, Dan,” he had said. “What’s a little cold?”

Dan hurries down the stairs to the ground floor, and stops only to tie his bathrobe before rushing down into the basement. He pushes open the door and, thinking Herbert must be in the inner room, nearly falls over his friend’s body.

Herbert is sprawled on his side a few feet from the foot of the stairs. Oddly for Herbert West, he’s wearing his pajamas, a navy-blue matched set with subdued piping.

He’s not unconscious, Dan sees with relief. West’s thin hands are kneading at the meat of his left thigh, trying to massage away the pain. But his hands and feet are terribly pale, almost ashy, and Dan can hear him whimpering softly under his breath. His fingers dig into his leg cruelly, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Dan kneels next to him. The concrete bites into his knees right away, icy cold and gritty. How much worse must it be for Herbert, lying full-body on it, with so little insulating fat to protect him?

He stretches out one hand to touch Herbert’s shoulder. Herbert usually runs a little warm, but even through the fabric of his pajama shirt his skin is chilly. Dan can feel the outline of his scapula sharply against his palm. “Herbert? What happened?”

"Dan." His voice is whispery and unfocused. "I… fell on the stairs."

"Okay. Do you think you can stand up?"

"No," Herbert says. He sounds ashamed. "Unless you bring me my cane."

"I’m not leaving you on the floor while I go get your cane," Dan says. "I’ll help you get up."

Herbert is silent for a moment. He’s in need of a haircut, and his fine, dark hair falls over his face silkily. His hands keep massaging his leg.

"Fine," he says, and Dan begins to really worry, because Herbert West has never accepted help without at least a little arguing.

"Can you sit up?" Dan tries. He could easily drag Herbert to his feet without any assistance from the man himself, but it would probably be something like trying to pick up a cat which does not want to be picked up.

"Of course I can," Herbert says, somewhat nastily, and Dan feels a little relieved. If he can be nasty, it’s not all that bad.

Herbert rolls onto his back and braces himself with his palms on the concrete, then forces himself into a sitting position. His mouth is drawn tight with pain as he moves. “All right,” he says. “Now what, Doctor Cain?”

Dan scoots a little closer to him. “Put your arms around my shoulders,” he instructs, and Herbert reluctantly does so. He laces his own arms under Herbert’s armpits. “Okay. I need your help. On the count of three — one — two — three — up.”

They stand up together, and Dan is not surprised to find that Herbert has, even with Dan watching him eat, lost more weight from an already spare frame. He feels far too light in Dan’s arms, his bones too prominent.

Dan tries to let go of Herbert, but Herbert clings to him with an odd persistence. “Are you all right?” Dan asks.

Herbert goes tense. “No,” he snaps. He hangs in Dan’s embrace like a doll or a marionette. Dan can’t stop thinking of how thin and frail he feels. It’s like holding a skeleton.

"What’s the matter?" Good luck getting Herbert to admit to anything being wrong, but it’s worth the try.

"My leg." Herbert is supporting a little of his own weight, Dan can feel that. But he’s balanced entirely on his right leg. His left leg isn’t taking any of his meager weight.

"Have you been taking your pain medication?" Herbert usually keeps the bottle tucked away like a dirty secret, but for the past week it’s sat out on the kitchen counter. Either Herbert is making some sort of point that he doesn’t need to be nagged into taking it or, worse, he’s taking it so often he doesn’t see the point in putting the bottle away.

"It’s not helping," Herbert groans. "I couldn’t sleep… So I came down here. I thought I’d try…" He trails off, sounding like a child expecting a scolding.

"Herbert, no!" Dan always hated Herbert’s habit of injecting the reagent to avoid sleep and needing to eat, and the prospect of his starting again makes him afraid for his friend’s well-being. It didn’t matter to him if it was a dilute blend. It was a trick Herbert played on his body to squeeze out a little more time before it collapsed.

"It’s the only thing I have left that might work." He actually sounds guilty. "I tested it on animals — the dilute serum has strong analgesic properties, without the side effects of that stuff Bray put me on. Dan, please."

His voice cracks on the last word, and it’s that, combined with feeling the tremulous heartbeat of the fragile body in his arms, that makes Dan think that just this once, he can break his rule about Herbert and reagent.

"Fine," he says, praying this will work, that he won’t ever wake up again to Herbert’s screams of pain in the night. "Tell me what I need to do."

Herbert sighs, and rests his head against Dan’s neck. His hair is exactly as soft as it looks. “There’s a bottle of the dilute reagent in the refrigerator. You’ll need to inject it into my hip. I’m afraid I can’t do it myself.”

"Okay," Dan says, reaching one hand up to ruffle Herbert’s hair. Herbert sways on his feet and leans into him. "Okay, I can do that."

"Thank you, Dan."

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from [tumblr](http://cryingalonewithfrankenstein.tumblr.com/post/81310095536/reanimator-fic-where-herbert-uses-a-cane-inspired), based on [headcanon ranting](http://cryingalonewithfrankenstein.tumblr.com/post/81264780745/im-imagining-herbert-west-as-a-cane-user-now-tho). 
> 
> "Gentle fluff / hurt/comfort about disabled or mentally-ill characters" is apparently my genre of choice this year.


End file.
